Self Reflection

I really had no expectations for this class other than I knew we were going to be working out in the field with urban schools. I really wanted to see exactly what this urban myth of inner city schools was all about because I never got to see the one in person. Now that I have been able to see what the some urban schools are like in person I have wiped most of my assumptions of urban schools out.

My biggest personal challenge of this term was to try and erase all my preconceived notions about what urban education is all about. To be honest my biggest accomplishment was that I think that I have taken great strides to be able to say I will be able to teach in an urban setting with a blank slate and not bring any of my incorrect ideas into my classroom environment.

Well like I have noted above I believe that in order to be a successful in urban schools is to have open mind, a lot of creativity and to be fair and honest with your students. I also believe from what I have learned in the class discussions mainly is to be able to work the system, find ways to get your students and you as a teacher what you and them both need in order to be successful. Since if have just found out that I will most likely be doing my student teaching in University High in Newark I will have a much better look into what it really takes to become a good urban educator. However, the things that I will bring on my journey as a teacher hopefully all those previously mentioned successful traits of an urban teacher and really an educator in general.

The most helpful thing that learning about urban schools and working in urban communities were probably the discussions about how the system works and to realize that you will need to know this in order to get certain things accomplished. I think that the class could have been a little more spread out over time. I feel that the trip to Newark was so time constrained and there may not have been enough preparation time to go into Newark schools ask questions that would have been a little more useful to me and my future experiences. I just feel that the course flew by and since urban schools is so unfamiliar to me it was a lot to take in over really less than four week course, but that just might be talking. I think the most helpful reading was “The Pedagogy of Poverty versus good teaching” it was a good reinforcement of what good teaching is and also an insight to what some urban education is may be like I might have liked to read something more about history of urban schools at the beginning of the semester. I think everything we did in class was pretty good maybe we could have had less discussion and some more informative instructive learning about urban since it seemed with the exception of a few of the students in the class there was very little first hand urban education experience. I would have liked to know more about the techniques of what works in an urban classroom and what doesn’t. It just seems that there could and should be a couple other courses on Urban Education in the MAT program other than just this one. That is if you ask me for someone who is going to student teaching in an urban setting and hopefully teaching in one afterwards in Monmouth County.